Abbott Hall Brisbane

Abbott Hall Brisbane (December 4, 1804 – September 28, 1861) was a prominent South Carolinian whose accomplishments included an extensive military career, engineering work, a professorship, authorship of a major Roman Catholic inspirational novel, and eventually, in retirement, a slave-holding plantation owner before the U.S. Civil War.

Family Abbott Hall Brisbane was born the son of John S. Brisbane on December 4, 1804. Although he is famed for his devotion to Roman Catholicism, "Abbott" was a traditional name in his family and not an ecclesiastical title. They had one son together, who died in infancy, "and his loss nearly broke his father's heart."

Though he had no children of his own who survived to adulthood, Brisbane's niece, Mary Catharine Brisbane Hickox (1832–1913), wrote a brief reflection about his life. Her report of their married life reveals a very affectionate and balanced relationship, with Adeline "calm and self-reliant as a man" and having the good spirits to lift Brisbane from depression. "He always called her 'Wifie' and she called him Mr. Brisbane as did most of the wives at that time in Charleston. I don't know what the custom was elsewhere....Fortunately for him he died some years before she did, just after the opening of the civil war in 1861. I am sure he could never have lived without her protecting love." Hickox writes that Brisbane was about to engage in the "War of Secession" – the U.S. Civil War – at the time of his death.

After Brisbane died, his widow traveled first to Albany to settle family financial affairs. In 1825, at the age of 21, he graduated.

He was made a colonel of the South Carolina Volunteers on February 7, 1836. The workers were paid in scrip that could only be redeemed at company stores; to speed the project, Brisbane needed cash. To get it, he approached Bishops John Hughes (New York) and Ignatius A. Reynolds (Charleston) for loans, as well as support from the City of Savannah. Although some funds were forthcoming, the lack of progress by 1843 made Hughes retreat from his commitment. This left Brisbane with nothing to pay the workers who took him and his wife hostage in their own cabin until rescued by armed horsemen. The 1860 Slave Schedules of the U.S. Census list him as owner of 59 black slaves, from infants to age 85, in Ward 2 of Charleston city, and another 30 black slaves in St. Andrew's Parish in Charleston County, ranging from infants to age 90.

Abbott Hall Brisbane died in the community of Summerville on September 28, 1861.

Novel Brisbane and his wife converted to Catholicism after the death of their infant son, and in widowhood, Adeline moved into a convent and possibly took vows there. Brisbane himself was extremely devout, and authored what on expert described as "the only Catholic novel from the deep South" in the first half of the 1800s.

Ralphton; The Young Carolinian of 1776, A Romance on the Philosophy of Politics, was published in Charleston by Burgess and James in 1848. The book uses the character of Father Duane, a Jesuit, to expound Brisbane's own economic philosophies which the expert describes as:

Brisbane's niece had a strong opinion of her own:

This apparently began with the very first word in the title, which she spelled incorrectly in her memoir. In his preface to the novel, Brisbane states he has modeled the character of Father Duane on Father John Carroll, the Jesuit who became the first (and, at the time, the only) bishop of the United States in 1789.